At least one post each workday offering the perspective of a simple liberal working man.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

On withdrawing from Iraq: Forcing us to trust George

I think the tide in Washington is turning and if the President does not accept a timeline for withdrawal in the next couple of months, that timetable will be shoved down his throat. When he tries to regurgitate it with a veto there will be enough Republicans who see the writing on the wall to tamp it back down the Presidents gullet by overriding that veto.

There are 2 issues to consider that will attend this withdrawal. 1st, if the President is forced to preside over a withdrawal when his heart is not in it, we could see a slow motion disaster involving a messy extrication in the face of the enemy. President Bush has proven himself singularly inept at such large scale propositions, even when he believes in the mission. I see no reason to place our faith in his ability as commander in chief to get a withdrawal right.

If anything, my lack of faith in the Presidents ability to oversee such a massive project makes it tempting for me to call for a redeployment of troops to several large scale easily defended bases in theater, with an eye to complete withdrawal in 2009. Honestly ask yourself...do you trust Bush to get a withdrawal from Iraq right? That's right folks. I'm so distrustful of this Presidents basic competence and trust worthiness that I think a decent argument can be made to consolidate the troops in a defensive posture and let the next President work out the withdrawal. If the President is positively forced to withdraw from Iraq, given his record, do you think his efforts will be successful? Are we smart to trust him to not turn that into a disaster? Look at his record! What are the consequences if he botches it? Are we prepared to see American POW's left behind with the insurgency foaming at the mouth for revenge regarding Abu Ghraib? That could really get ugly. If a withdrawal is necessary under Bush, I expect Congress to fully carry out it's oversight role and hopefully provide a counter to the obvious short comings shown by the President in the face of other large projects he has been entrusted with..

Once all the troops are out of Iraq, or disengaged from the major population centers the aftermath of the occupation is going to be a freaking human disaster. The three sides in Iraq are going to have it out, and they do not fight fair. The Kurds are going to fight for Mosul and the Shiite and Sunni are going to fight to avoid their own genocide. Iran has a going interest in the Shiite, and most of the Arab world has a going interest in the Sunni. Both the Sunni and Shiite will fight each other and the Kurds for Mosul. Turkey is going to be threatening to invade Kurdistan... in other words it will be bloody, awful, chaotic hell. We, who support the withdrawal of our forces from Iraq must recognize this and prepare ourselves and the American people for what is to come.

You may ask yourself, 'well gee, why would we want to pull out if we leave behind a bloody tangled destabilizing mess'. Because it's going to happen whenever we pull out whether we do it now, in 2009, or in 2019. Only a fullscale occupation by a force comprised of hundreds of thousands more troops than the coalition currently has on the ground over the course of many decades may have a chance to stop it. America is not willing to put those resources to bear in Iraq. As we are currently witnessing, that sort of occupation itself would be a bloody affair. The accumulated blood letting on both sides of a prolonged occupation would likely be roughly equivalent to, or even greater than the blood letting of a vicious (but compared to the time length of a full scale occupation) short term civil war. So the difference here is that the sooner we get out, the sooner we can get our people out of harms way, and the sooner the post withdrawal cataclysm plays itself out.

Also, the sooner we withdraw, the sooner we take that issue out of circulation for Al Qaeda to use in recruiting more members. The sooner we can start repairing the damage the Bushies did to America's international standing. The sooner we can move on.

Upon consideration, I think it would be prudent to prepare ourselves on a political level for the consequences of withdrawing. There will be condemnation and blame game finger pointing galore. The wingnuts will take each new atrocity and place it at the feet of the Democrats, preaching that this is the result of electing them to office. Let us prepare ourselves...

The simple fact is that all the evil that has flowed and will flow from this debacle was unnecessary, and a direct result of wrong headed policy and lies by the Bush administration. We have been led into an unwinnable quagmire by fools in high places.

I don't think there is any chance of overriding the current veto (it's already been sustained by the House). But I think public pressure is only going to increase and late this summer or early fall there will be so much pressure that Republican Congress members in large numbers will start coming to our side. Enough perhaps to override a veto at that time.

On pow's... the actual disengagement in the face of an active enemy is a very tricky maneuver. Basically the less force you have the less control you have. As the forces draw down we won't be able to project to trouble spots like we can now. So if it is done wrongly you might see units cut off, captured, wiped out or so on. A worst case scenario would be very bad.

About Me

Bhfrik stands for bald headed freak. I am a proud liberal, married to a staunch libertarian conservative. We have two cats, Xiahou Meow and Rustee, who rule our household with velvet paws. You can email me @ bhfrik At Gmail dot com.